I'm hearing sheriffs did try out the new 700 system but there were too many dead spots. So they moved back to 470's. Also hearing other towns tried the 700 but also ran into the same coverage problems. So they went back to their old channels. All this from good inside sources.

I know when they were talking about bringing the county agencies to the 700 mhz system, the older channels would become available, and I know LB was complaining about coverage on fire 5, so im not sure if they are trying something.

It should be interesting in the next several months with Oceanport switching over, not sure if their PD will be on the trunked system, bringing over their channel or using county car.

here is the un-official news. monmouth fire-5 is now a repeater <?> . county is having issues with several frequencies. fire-1, fire-5, fire-2 and ems 1 sound horrible. i do not know if this is a simulcast problem, meteor showers <as of late> or what. several agencies have been complaining about the problems. a few towns have complained that their fd pagers did not activate on fire-1. i do personally know that my minitor 5 pager w/capability of multiple tone slots, did not activate for a fire call in long branch, the other night.

@Pete, The borough allocated $135,000 for radio equipment... Hoping they buy all good equipment up front and get everything set, rather than piece mealing things down the road. However, of that $135,000, Im not sure if that includes providing the ability for the county to set off the siren, or upgrades to the current PD channel, upgrades in the phone system and/or includes the fees for the switchover for programming and/or the purchase of additional/replacement of pagers and radios.

**on a side note, I havnt had an issue with my pager for D38/Sq2521/2522 (other than the normal static for the 2522 dispatch).

as for fire5 being heard on Parks it happened right around the time when Parks made their switch to the new 700mhz system. But my guess would be that the issues that the issues they are currently facing on the system are the same ones that the Sheriffs officers faced which resulted in them switching back to Sheriffs4 for the foreseeable future until the issues are worked out.